The Hate & Hypocrisy of SB1304/HB0836
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
— William Shakespeare, Richard III
Earlier this month, Tennessee lawmakers kicked off the 2020 legislative year with a bang. Well, not so much a “bang” as a painfully predictable play ripped straight from the GOP discrimination handbook. SB1304/HB0836 was just passed in the Republican-controlled TN Senate and in effect, assures that any LGBTQ+ couples looking to adopt a child in Tennessee can be denied from giving that child or children a home and a family, solely on the basis of the couple’s sexual orientation. While this has been the case even before this bill was passed, the one important new development this bill implements is that faith-based adoption agencies can wield this hate confidently with the full weight and protection of Tennessee law to shield them from any potential lawsuits from the discriminated against. The bill went to the desk of Republican Governor Bill Lee, who signed the bill into law on January 24th, 2020. When asked why he ultimately chose to sign the bill after originally being undecided, Gov. Lee said, “I think equality is important and protection of rights is important and the rights of religious liberty are important. And that bill was centered around protection of religious liberty and that’s why I signed it.”. I’m not quite sure how to properly unpack all the BS in that statement, or to break down the GOP’s actions with this bill in general, but nevertheless, we must. Now, more than it ever has been before in my lifetime, it is imperative for men and women of good will and full hearts to speak up and step up to ignorance, bigotry, and blatant discrimination, speak truth to power, highlight the hate, name it for who and what it is, and ground our passionate thought in peaceful discourse, clear and humble language, and evidence-backed elocution. Simply put, SB1304/HB0836 is a stain on our state. It serves zero constructive purpose to/for Tennessee citizens, it harms Tennessee children in desperate need of adoption, perpetrates thick hate clumsily concealed beneath a paper-thin veil of twisted religious justification, and places another boulder squarely onto the already-bruised, battered and burdened backs of LGBTQ+ people, serving as yet another chapter of injustice in the Tolstoyesque mega-novel of discrimination, disrespect, and inequality they’ve endured for decades.
Among the litany of head-tilting justifications Senate Republicans have juggled to support this bill, there are several that emerge as their clear favorites. First is the party line that this bill isn’t about oppressing one group, it’s about the freedom of another group. Sen. Paul Rose, the Republican sponsor of the bill said, “This bill is solely about freedom,”. Let’s dive right into into that. By the sheer act of even crafting this bill in the first place, it means that TN Republicans must’ve felt strongly that without it, the religious freedoms of their constituents were in danger, right? Nope. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. To start with, Sen. Rose couldn’t even get all of his own fellow Republicans to support the bill. When it came time to vote, five of the twenty-five voting Republicans, sans spines, elected to simply vote “present” (I know, take a minute and just let all that bravery and courage wash over you). With one Republican, Sen. Steve Dickerson, managing to momentarily locate his conscience long enough to break party lines and vote with Democrats in opposition (although it’s worth noting that his dissent had less to do with standing up for LGBTQ+ couples and more to do with the economic impact the bill will have on Tennessee when big companies cease doing business in our state— see NC and the bathroom bill debacle of 2016). This is also probably a good time to mention that the bill’s own sponsor never even believed the bill was ever necessary. Sen. Rose admitted recently that he was aware the Trump Administration was already well on their way to enact similar legislation that would provide the exact same religious protections and rescind an Obama-era rule that prevented foster care agencies from receiving federal funds if they discriminated against families based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Even some GOP lawmakers have recently stated the bill is redundant and unnecessary.
Up next on the hit list of Republican justifications for the bill is the long-touted idea that LGBTQ+ couples, families, and households raise children who grow up to be “less well-adjusted” than children who grow up with heterosexual parents. Now, I’m well aware of the GOP’s aversion to facts, math, and science since hitching their wagon to 45’s star , but nevertheless, we’re going to use both science AND facts throughout this piece. Just because half the country starts saying the sky is green doesn’t mean we should stop reminding them it’s blue.
According to Charlotte J. Patterson, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, the research shows that children adopted into lesbian and gay families are just as well-adjusted as children adopted by heterosexual parents, and follow similar patterns of gender development. Patterson and co-authors Rachel H. Farr, a psychology doctoral student at UVA, and Stephen L. Forssell, PhD, of George Washington University, studied 106 families — including 56 same-sex couples and 50 heterosexual couples — who adopted children at birth or in the first few weeks of life. In the study, parents assessed their own parenting styles and relationship satisfaction. They also filled out the Preschoolers’ Activities Inventory, which assesses whether gender role behavior conforms to expected patterns or not, and the Child Behavior Checklist. Teachers and day-care providers were asked to complete the Caregiver-Teacher Report Form, which assesses a child’s somatic complaints, anxiety, depression and withdrawn behaviors. By looking at parents’ self-reports and reports of others, the researchers found that the children of gays and lesbians were virtually indistinguishable from children of heterosexual parents.
Another stalwart of the right-wing resistance to treating queer families with respect, dignity, and equality in the realm of adoption and beyond is the notion that their marriages aren’t as stable as hetero-marriages. Once again, let’s turn to the facts. A peer-reviewed research report on LGBTQ+ parented families by The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds that the past several decades have seen a proliferation of studies on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) parenting, with increased attention to (a) family building by LGB people; (b) the transition to parenthood for LGB parents; and (c) functioning and experiences of LGB parents and their children and the findings are consistent in suggesting that despite confronting heterosexism in a variety of social contexts — including the health care system, the legal system, and the school system — LGBTQ+ parents and their children are functioning quite well. Additionally, The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy collected administrative data on divorce rates between LGBTQ+ couples and heterosexual couples. The data there found that, on average, same-sex couples divorced at an average rate of 1.1 percent annually, compared with 2 percent annually between heterosexual pairs. Another study by the American Sociological Association for the US National Library of Medicine concluded “there is a clear consensus in the social science literature indicating that American children living within same-sex parent households fare just as well as those children residing within different-sex parent households over a wide array of well-being measures: academic performance, cognitive development, social development, psychological health, early sexual activity, and substance abuse. Our assessment of the literature is based on credible and methodologically sound studies that compare well-being outcomes of children residing within same-sex and different-sex parent families”. The right-wing notion of parental hetero-superiority when it comes to stability for adoptive children has been decisively debunked and discredited time and time again.
The irony that this bill comes from the same party who claims the moral high ground on issues like abortion is particularly laughable. The hypocrisy of fighting tooth and nail for decades to violate and deny a woman’s right to control her own body, all supposedly in the name of “protecting the child”, whilst simultaneously leading the charge to pass legislation that explicitly damages living children in desperate need of a home is too perplexing to even begin to dissect. If hate and intolerance is going to be your brand, the least you could do is be consistent in your bigotry and prejudice. And make no mistake, SB1304/HB0836 hurts children. According to another Williams Institute study, same-sex couples are approximately 4.5 times more likely than different-sex couples to adopt children. So by passing this bill, TN Republican lawmakers purposefully and proudly slash a childs chances of being adopted in our state each year, needlessly condemning them to much greater time cycling through the perilous foster care system. All in the name of God? Disgusting. I don’t know what God you worship, Governor and Senators, but the God I pray to made us all in his own image, wants us to treat one another the way we’d each want to be treated ourselves, and desires all innocent children to have a home and a family.
Look, faith and religion can be beautiful things. I’m a man of faith. I believe in God. My faith in a higher power is and has always been a source of great comfort, peace, and strength. I wouldn’t be alive today without it. But throughout my short thirty-one years on this earth I have witnessed the separation of church and state erode to near-extinction, I’ve watched my faith and my religion be hijacked and gnarled into a hostile shield designed to divide us from anything and everything we don’t understand, forged in the kilns of the morally bankrupt, for far too long. And tragically, it’s the most vulnerable among us who are all too often the ones that get singed. Governor Lee, Senator Rose and Senator Rudd, search your consciences and repeal this bill. It is and will always be a dark mark on our state and it sends a message to the rest of the country and to the world that despite being 244 years removed from the Declaration of Independence, here in the state of Tennessee, all men are still not created equal. Instead of cliff-noting a book written 3500 years ago, perhaps you could begin embracing what that book tells us repeatedly is the greatest of all his words, actions, and lessons imparted to us… love. Instead of defining yourselves and your party by what you stand against, try defining yourselves and your party by what you stand for. LGBTQ+ humans are spectacular. They are some of the strongest, loving, and brilliant people we have in this world. And frankly, they deserve better from their state and their country than being denied the basic human right of starting a family, creating a legacy, and giving a child a home, based solely on your own inadequacy, ignorance, and willful refusal to accept who they were born to love. Newsflash TN GOP lawmakers: the same God you evoke in your ignorant justifications for denying their right to give homeless children a home, is the same God who created them, in his image, loving who they love, the exact same way you love who you love.
Tennessee has now joined eight other states in passing this discriminatory legislation and the Trump administration is working to implement it nationwide. If you believe LGBTQ+ should be able to enjoy the freedom to start a family and adopt a child without living in fear they’ll be denied that fundamental human life experience based solely on who they were born to love, then I urge you, call, email, and write to your senators, governors, and legislators. The ACLU of TN has a simple one-stop-shop webpage dedicated to this: https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tn-sb1304-hb836-adoption-discrimination. I’m proud to work with them as a Legal Observer, I share in their disgust with this bill, and in their determination to do something about it. Together, we can make a difference. But only when we all rise up as one, smother hate with love and light, and treat an injustice to one of us as an injustice to all of us.
“He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
— Matthew 18:2–6
Sources
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/anti-lgbt-adoption-bill-heads-to-tennessee-governor
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/10/adopted-children
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/lgb-parent-families-july-2014.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4091994/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/divorce-marriage-rates-fo_b_1085024
http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=SB1304&GA=111
